The optimal design of aperiodic/irregular clustered phased arrays for base stations (BSs) in multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) communication systems is addressed. The paper proposes an ad-hoc synthesis method aimed at maximizing the
users traffic capacity within the cell served by the BS, while guaranteeing the sufficient level of signal at the terminals. Towards this end, the search of the optimal aperiodic clustering is carried out through a customized tiling technique able to consider both single and multiple tile shapes as well as to assure the complete coverage of the antenna aperture for the maximization of the directivity. Representative results, from a wide set of numerical examples concerned with realistic antenna models and benchmark 3GPP scenarios, are reported to assess the advantages of the irregular array architectures in comparison with regular/periodic layouts proposed by the standard development organizations, as well.
The modular design of planar phased array antennas with hexagonal apertures is addressed by means of innovative diamond-shaped tiling techniques. Both tiling configuration and subarray coefficients are optimized to fit user-defined power-mask constra
ints on the radiation pattern. Toward this end, suitable surface-tiling mathematical theorems are customized to the problem at hand to guarantee optimal performance in case of low/medium-size arrays, while the computationally hard tiling of large arrays is yielded thanks to an effective integer-coded GA-based exploration of the arising high-cardinality solution spaces. By considering ideal as well as real array models, a set of representative benchmark problems is dealt with to assess the effectiveness of the proposed architectures and tiling strategies. Moreover, comparisons with alternative tiling architectures are also performed to show to the interested readers the advantages and the potentialities of the diamond subarraying of hexagonal apertures.
The design of isophoric phased arrays composed of two-sized square-shaped tiles that fully cover rectangular apertures is dealt with. The number and the positions of the tiles within the array aperture are optimized to fit desired specifications on t
he power pattern features. Toward this end, starting from the derivation of theoretical conditions for the complete tileability of the aperture, an ad hoc coding of the admissible arrangements, which implies a drastic reduction of the cardinality of the solution space, and their compact representation with a graph are exploited to profitably apply an effective optimizer based on an integer-coded genetic algorithm. A set of representative numerical examples, concerned with state-of-the-art benchmark problems, is reported and discussed to give some insights on the effectiveness of both the proposed tiled architectures and the synthesis strategy.
The design of phased arrays able to generate arbitrary-shaped beams through a sub-arrayed architecture is addressed here. The synthesis problem is cast in the excitation matching framework, so as to yield clustered phased arrays providing optimal tra
de-offs between the complexity of the array architecture (i.e., the minimum number of control points at the sub-array level) and the matching of a reference pattern. A synthesis tool based on the k-means algorithm is proposed for jointly optimizing the sub-array configuration and the complex sub-array coefficients. Selected numerical results, including pencil beams with sidelobe notches and asymmetric lobes as well as shaped main lobes, are reported and discussed to highlight the peculiarities of the proposed approach also in comparison with some extensions to complex excitations of state-of-the-art sub-array design methods.
A statistical approach based on the interval analysis (IA) is proposed for the analysis of the effects, on the radiation patterns radiated by phased arrays, of random errors and tolerances in the amplitudes and phases of the array-elements excitation
s. Starting from the efficient, reliable, and inclusive computation of the bounds of the complex-valued interval array pattern function by means of IA, an analytic method is presented to yield closed-form expressions for the probability of occurrence of a user-chosen value of the power pattern or of its features within the corresponding IA-derived bounds. A set of numerical examples is reported and discussed to assess the reliability of the proposed probabilistic interval analysis (PIA) method with the results from Monte Carlo simulations as well as to point out its effectiveness and potentialities/advantages/efficiency in real applications of great industrial interest.
